Pope Francis, on Thursday, expressed his desire to visit crisis-hit Lebanon and urged political leaders in South Sudan to continue working for peace in his Christmas Eve messages, reported AFP.

August’s devastating port blast in Beirut has plunged Lebanon into its worst economic crisis in decades. The 84-year-old pontiff, in a message to cardinal Bechara Rai, the patriarch of the Maronite Church, said he hoped to visit Lebanon “as soon as possible”.

He said, “Beloved sons and daughters of Lebanon, I am deeply troubled to see the suffering and anguish that has sapped the native resilience and resourcefulness of the Land of the Cedars.”

Also read: Two Vatican cardinals close to Pope Francis contract COVID-19

The Pope appealed to Lebanon’s leaders “to seek the best interest of the public” and for the international community to “help Lebanon to surmount this grave crisis and resume a normal existence”.

The pope and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leaders of more than 1.3 billion Christians, also repeated their desire to visit South Sudan “in due course, as things return to normalcy” in a separate statement. 

In an address to the political leaders of the conflict-ravaged eastern African nation, they said, “We have been glad to see the small progress you have made, but know it is not enough for your people to feel the full effect of peace.”

South Sudan is struggling to emerge from a six-year civil war that claimed some 380,000 lives and officially ended with the creation of a government of national unity in February.